Pulling out at a very late stage due to no exchange

spacey2012

It means structural changes have been made without planning regulations or inspection.
It also means your mortgage company need to be informed of this immediately.
They will have to obtain building inspection approval for the structural modifications.
This is going to take months.

I assume they are speaking about the house you are buying.

hazyjo

Really don't get why people put time-demands on others when buying property. It takes as long as it takes. Average is 12 weeks!

A buyer (investor) once asked to exchange within three weeks. We agreed. However, ended up taking five long months! Lots of things cropped up on our purchase and had to have a deed of variation/recification.

Next purchase took nearly 12 weeks - again, chasing every day, speaking with at least a solicitor, EA or mortgage provider.

You'll probably have the same problem with the next, and will be starting from scratch.

Try to sit tight and be patient (and push for updates), but try not to make unreasonable demands - it just adds to the stress that EVERYONE is already under!

Jx

drdpj

It sounds like they're suggesting an indemnity policy to cover the lack of building regs/planning (instead of getting them retrospectively which takes time). This will be necessary for the mortgage company to agree to the loan. You should contact your solicitor and ask them directly on the phone what this means and the implications surrounding it.

Meanwhile, DON'T draw down the money until you've exchanged contracts, that sets a whole load of different clocks ticking.

FWIW, we're waiting on an outstanding answer to an enquiry from DECEMBER - it's completely out of our hands, but so far as I can tell it is being dealt with (finally), and we've been chasing it to the full extend that we can. Just have to remain hopeful that our buyers are understanding and realise that these things crop up and ultimately it'll take as long as it takes! Everyone in the chain want to complete ASAP. Your vendors probably feel exactly the same and if you come at them threatening to pull out you'll achieve nothing

KatieDee

spacey2012 wrote: »

It means structural changes have been made without planning regulations or inspection.
It also means your mortgage company need to be informed of this immediately.
They will have to obtain building inspection approval for the structural modifications.
This is going to take months.

I assume they are speaking about the house you are buying.

Is this true? Is it really going to take months?

From what the solicitor is saying, she's asked them to provide some kind of insurance to cover us and any future purchasers? Not that I'm accusing you of being wrong, it's just that "months" seems a bit drastic.

To quote her when I asked what it was - "Basically the policy would cover you for any enforcement action taken by the Council should they be made aware of the works carried out at the property without consent, if it was just a case of them boarding out for storage purposes then this wouldn’t be a problem, but the confirmation of installation of stairs, this makes it a different matter. The Indemnity doesn’t confirm that the staircase is safe to use.

The Policy would be for the full purchase price of the Property and would be capable of being passed to any future owner and should cover owners and mortgagees, we have asked them to provide a specimen policy"

Any idea how long this will take? Take it I shouldn't hold my breath for completion on Friday...

bluep

Take a deep breath and be zen. Try to let it all wash over you. It will happen, maybe a bit later than you wanted to but is an extra week or two where you are living so bad? If so, how about a hotel? Small costs in relation to pulling out and starting the whole process again - which will most likely be just as stressful in the last couple of week of purchasing.

We agreed with our vendor that he'd pack up and move to a completion date of start of March. Guess what....didn't exchange contracts until 2 weeks after we'd planned to (in fact, just exchanged about an hour ago today). Got messed around, solicitors weren't very good at explaining the delays, and now we have a completion date of 14 March. Yep, its frustrating (and we are staying with family too) but its only a couple of weeks.

If you push back and say that you want them to move out, move in with family, then move again when they buy their new property all for moving things forward a week when you don't have to leave where you are staying, sounds pretty inflexible. Be calm and nice - how would you like to be treated if it were you trying to sell and buy at the same time? :-)

notanewuser

It's totally standard (the indemnity policy).

It will take hours/days rather than months.

I was forced to get one when selling in case the council decided that the extension built by the previous owners within permitted development with a council grant needed to be taken down.

Dan-Dan

How logn ago was the work carried out , IIRC if its over 4 years , then the council wont be interested , that doesnt make the work `safe `though....

poppysarah

KatieDee wrote: »

The in-laws have very nicely put us up, but it would be a nightmare living here for much longer.

If you pull out of the house purchase are you going to rent?

That can take weeks to organise too.

Go and have a short break away.

KatieDee

bluep wrote: »

If you push back and say that you want them to move out, move in with family, then move again when they buy their new property all for moving things forward a week when you don't have to leave where you are staying, sounds pretty inflexible. Be calm and nice - how would you like to be treated if it were you trying to sell and buy at the same time? :-)

Well if I was selling, I would start by being completely honest about my intentions for a start

Seriously, I read so many horror stories on here about people hating first time buyers...I've done everything right and things are still going wrong.

If we pull out now, we can buy in the city as opposed to the nearby town. I adore the house but there are just so many issues and I'm beginning to think we've paid over the odds for it, looking at the work that needs doing due to the vendors crap DIY skills.

I have more or less decided I'm not into this anymore. OH is asking me to reconsider but getting conflicting advice such as "Oh, it's minor, will take hours/days" vs "OH MY GOD YOUR HOUSE WILL EXPLODE YOU WON'T COMPLETE UNTIL 2060" is a bit unnerving to say the least.

I can't even speak to the vendors about this as I'm pretty sure running everything through them will eventually cause issues, even though I'm just trying to keep everybody informed.

Frustrating as well seeing that our solicitor didn't go into details about the enquiries she had raised.

Thanks everybody for your advice so far...it really does help. Still wanting to pull my hair out though.

DRP

KatieDee wrote: »

The Policy would be for the full purchase price of the Property and would be capable of being passed to any future owner and should cover owners and mortgagees

if by the time you sell the place, the sale price of the house has gone up, you will have to pay extra to 'top up' the policy.